gh-dhofheinz-open-plugins-plugins-git-commit-assistant/commands/commit-error-handling/handle-no-changes.md

Operation: Handle No Changes Error

Handle "nothing to commit, working tree clean" errors.

Purpose

When attempting to commit with no staged or unstaged changes, guide users to understand why and what to do next.

Parameters

None required - detection is automatic.

Workflow

1. Verify Changes Status

Execute the changes detector script:

/home/danie/projects/plugins/architect/open-plugins/plugins/git-commit-assistant/commands/commit-error-handling/.scripts/changes-detector.sh

This will return JSON:

{
  "has_changes": false,
  "staged_count": 0,
  "unstaged_count": 0,
  "untracked_count": 0,
  "total_changes": 0
}

2. Analyze Git Status

Run comprehensive status check:

git status --porcelain
git status

Determine:

• Are files modified but not saved?
• Are all changes already committed?
• Are changes in a different directory?
• Are files ignored by .gitignore?

3. Provide Context-Specific Guidance

Scenario A: All Changes Already Committed

NO CHANGES TO COMMIT
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Your working tree is clean.

Current Status:
✅ All changes are already committed
✅ No modified files
✅ No untracked files

This means:
- All your changes have been saved to git
- Nothing new to commit

Next Steps:
1. Make some changes to files
2. Create new files
3. Then commit again

Or if you're done:
- Push your commits: git push
- View history: git log --oneline -5

Scenario B: Files Modified But Not Saved

NO CHANGES TO COMMIT
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Possible Reason: Files Not Saved
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Git sees no changes because:
- You edited files but didn't save them
- Changes are in your editor buffer

Actions:
1. Save all files in your editor (Ctrl+S or Cmd+S)
2. Check git status again:
   git status
3. If files appear, stage and commit:
   git add .
   git commit

Scenario C: Wrong Directory

NO CHANGES TO COMMIT
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Possible Reason: Wrong Directory
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Current directory: /path/to/current
Changes might be elsewhere.

Actions:
1. Verify you're in the right place:
   pwd
   ls

2. Navigate to project root:
   cd /path/to/project

3. Check status there:
   git status

Scenario D: Files Ignored

NO CHANGES TO COMMIT
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Possible Reason: Files Ignored by .gitignore
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Git might be ignoring your files.

Check:
1. View ignored patterns:
   cat .gitignore

2. Check if file is ignored:
   git check-ignore -v <filename>

3. Force add ignored files (if needed):
   git add -f <filename>

Note: Be careful adding ignored files - they're usually
ignored for good reason (node_modules, .env, etc.)

4. Detect Edge Cases

Check for:

• Unstaged changes in subdirectories

  git status --porcelain
  

• Changes to ignored files only

  git status --ignored
  

• Accidentally reset changes

  git reflog -5
  

5. Interactive Verification

Guide user to verify:

Let's verify your changes:

1. List all files in directory:
   ls -la

2. Check git status:
   git status

3. Check recent history:
   git log --oneline -3

Do you see the files you expected to commit?

Error Handling

If git status fails

Unable to check git status.
Ensure you're in a git repository.
Run: /commit-error-handling handle-no-repo

If permissions issues

Permission denied reading files.
Check file permissions: ls -la

Output Format

Always provide:

1. Clear status - What git sees
2. Explanation - Why there are no changes
3. Likely causes - Ordered by probability
4. Specific actions - Commands to verify/fix
5. Next steps - What to do after resolution

Success Indicators

After user follows guidance:

• User understands why there were no changes
• Changes appear in git status
• User can proceed with commit
• Or user understands work is already committed

Related Operations

• Run diagnose-issues for comprehensive check
• After making changes, verify with commit-analysis/analyze-changes